Marianne Connor

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With recent Hollywood flicks like The Haunting and House on Haunted Hill, it seems like the ghost story may be experiencing a resurgence. Unfortunately, today's audiences are too gore-friendly for ghost stories to have much impact any more -- and screenwriters haven't been able to come up with an original approach that makes it work, either.

Writer/director Stefan Avalos revists the genre with The Ghosts of Edendale, a digital video feature that's hit and miss. Avalos's first mistake is to set the film in Hollywood, with all of his characters in "the business." Dozens of film industry cliches are rigorously run through before we get to the actual plot: Couple from the east coast (Paula Ficara and Stephen Wastell) move to L.A. to start a new life. Rachel (Ficara) is a model trying to become a writer. Kevin (Wastell) is, um, also a writer.